My Soldier Wrote Me!

Way back in the beginning of January I blogged about writing to "Any Soldier".  You can read more on that here.  

Well folks, I've heard back!  Real mail is so much fun.  When I looked in the mail slot and saw the handwritten envelope marked "FREE MAIL" I knew right away what it was.  I resisted all excitement within me that wanted to rip open the envelope and read the letter right then and there.  Instead, I waited till I was sitting on my couch, ready to meet my new friend.

I'm really happy to have heard back from my soldier.  It looks as though we will be able to communicate via email now - my have the times changed!

I think the only blow I got to my happiness was by my good friend's question "so, is this like gonna be a friend?  Or could it be something else?"  It was like a punch in the stomache.  You see, when I first sent my letter to a random soldier, I had a guy friend basically say the same thing only more in a teasing fashion, like, "I know what that means!"  Really?  REALLY?  Does anyone even know me?  After the response yesterday I just flat out said that I find that really offensive.  I don't do nice things with a hidden agenda.  For all anyone knows my soldier is a woman!  It really bothers me that writing a soldier means I'm trying to pick someone up.  Right, 'cause someone stationed in a dangerous area is so much more appealing than someone I could find in my everyday life.  Not saying it doesn't happen but...well...yes I am, for me!  ha!

Laying all those rude comments aside, I have a penpal and I'm really thrilled!

"Thing 1" = success!

Mommyhood

The time has come to share a little about the life of the man in my life.  If you’ve been around or stalked my blog even just a little, you’ve probably seen him.  In fact you’ve probably seen him look rather dapper in his Christmas tie and polo shirt.

 

This is Beans.

 

He’s a handsome boy and he knows it; believe me.

Mr. Beans, as my Father refers to him, is the man of the house.  He struts, he whines, he fights, he defends, he eats, and he sleeps.  Basically, he’s like most men; only difference is he doesn’t bring home any of the bacon!  It's totally fine though. We call it even because when the creepy crawlies start making their way around the home in the months of Spring, Summer, and Fall, Beans kills them dead.  And I appreciate that greatly.

Beans likes to know what is going on at all times.  He perches himself on high places where he can keep everyone in sight.  I find it absolutely adorable.  If he’s not under the lamp, or on my clothes, he’s usually found high atop the media shelf.  This is his spot and his alone.  Ivy has never once been allowed on it.  I honestly don’t think her little legs would be able to launch herself that high, but I just pretend she’s being respectful.  It doesn’t matter, Beans smiles massively when he’s on his shelf.

But don’t let his cute and cuddly appearance fool you.  He is one of the smartest cats that I have ever known.  I’m not kidding you.  He systematically finds things in the house that get him in trouble.  Why?  Simple, because it is attention.  He has done it his whole young life and it has lead to many sleepless nights while “waiting out” certain phases.

No longer has my man settled for sleepless nights.  He now respects my slumber, for the most part, and waits for me to wake up in the morning as he sits looking out the window. 

We now have a new hurdle:  The fridge.

“What do you mean, Heidi?”

Well, thank you for asking.  What I mean by that is simply; Beans jumps to touch the top of the fridge and then hits the floor.  It’s so loud that it is ridiculous.  And he does it over, and over, and over, and over without stopping – if I give him the satisfaction of saying “NO!”

Once I establish that it is wrong, I then ignore him when the behavior occurs and then eventually he tires of not being fawned over.  Sometimes this process takes weeks or months. 

So folks, wish me luck!

I have another weekend of THIS ahead:

Grief Is Not A Four Letter Word

Grief is such a personal thing.  No one can tell you how to grieve; they can only encourage you and be there for you while you do it.  I am convinced that no two people’s experiences are the same.  Grief is something that most people will face at some point in their lives.  It is inevitable.  That is part of the reason that in the book I am writing about finding the blessing in singlehood, there is an entire chapter devoted to it; facing grief as a single person.

 

Death has been something I’ve faced and dealt with several times in my lifetime.  One of my dearest friends went to be with the Lord after a long fight with cancer when she was in her early 30s.  That meant that at 25 years old I lost my best friend.  Never would I have imagined that four years later I would lose my Mom as well.

 

Three years have passed since my Mom received her new body (read: she went to be with the Lord and is no longer suffering in the pain of her natural/earthly body).  Three years can seem so long.  Three years can seem like a day.

 

The anniversary of my Mom’s death was just a few weeks ago.  Shortly after that time a woman who knew my Mother ran into me out in public.  This was a person that I love and respect.  She is a woman who has been a great friend to the family.  At the end of our short chat, in a very sweet and reassuring voice (seemingly out of nowhere), she said to me “It gets easier doesn’t it?”  And then she smiled and went on her way.

I wanted to say “No.  Actually, no, it doesn’t just get easier.”  But I didn’t have the heart to sound so cruel.
 

The truth of the situation is that I am single and I have no Mom.  Nothing changes that.  Nothing really gets easier about that.  It is the truth that I face all the time.  The degrees of that may change, but the truth of it does not. 

 

Life gets busier; time gets filled with other things, but even now, 3 years later, I find myself remembering random “Mom” things.

 

Today it was remembering how she would fake shoot me with if I entered the house or a room unannounced.  I could picture myself running up the stairs to meet her at the top and she’d go “peew, peew!  You didn’t identify yourself!” and then we would laugh.

 

When I lost my Mom…well, when she died, because technically I didn’t lose her, I mean, I knew right where she was.  Anyway, after I became Mom-less, I realized that “It will get easier” left my vocabulary.  Instead I replaced it with other words of strength.  Maybe it’s not meant to get easier.  You’ve just suffered a huge tragedy that maybe you are not meant to move on from.  That isn’t a bad thing; and no one should make you feel otherwise.

 

The business of life sets in and life goes on.  Maybe I will marry someday.  Perhaps I will have children.  If that happens, my Mom will not be there.  “She’ll be there in Spirit” will surely be stated by plenty of well-wishers, but at the end of the day, my physical Mother will not be there.  And she will be missed. 

 

There will always be events that she will be tangibly missed at.

 

These thoughts aren’t depressing to me; these thoughts are just fact.  My days now are a new normal.  I may go a week or more without thoughts of my Mom.  But then there are those times when a memory will strike my heart and I will feel tears well up inside of my eyes.   Usually those are the times that I couldn’t prepare for; not birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, holidays…rather, it is the times when the unexpected things hit.  It’s when a movie comes out that I know she’d love.  It can hit when I’m alone and need a hug.  It’s those times when I think to myself “I haven’t talked to my Mom in awhile”… and I instinctively reach for the phone.  Those are the times that cut like knife.

 

The point of all of this is just to say that grieving is a process.  It happens to you and with you.  If you’re grieving, grieve.  However that may look.  Find someone to share in it with you.  Remember the good times.  Laugh.  Cry.  God made us all unique and He knows just how to reach us in our hardest times.  Our loved ones will never be forgotten.  The pain will lessen and memories will bring strength in the hardest times.  Just remember, we’re not created to suffer alone.  There is always someone who we can find to be a rock for us; a person to hold us up when our knees get weak.

The picture above was taken about a year before my Mother passed away.

This photograph was taken during a missions trip to India.

This is a photo of my Mother doing something that she loved, hugging people.

Does This Blog Make Me Look Fat?

My life is full of randoms.  Random statements, random happenings, random friends, random everythings.

Random statements like when I co-worker tells me that if he could be an angel he would be one that rescued people and brought justice to wrong-doers.  To which I responded "so you'd be the Chuck Norris of angels?"  Note to self: Maybe you should start speaking like an adult.  But then again, life wouldn't be nearly as much fun.

Or even better yet, random statements like earlier today when a co-worker asked me if the local jail had conjugal visits.

Really?

Random happenings like finding poop on the bottom of my shoes today while home for lunch.  Quickly I changed into a different pair of shoes only to find out that they too had walked through poop somewhere, at some point... but where?  I don't own a dog and I couldn't find dog dookie in my yard when I went out and looked.  It's not my cats because they are clean and are actually the ones who pointed out the poop to me in the first place.  Awesome.  Random poop on the bottom of my shoes.  Fantastic, guess I'll be washing two pairs of shoes tonight.

Random friends like the ones I see but once a year and still manage to send me thoughtful notes and gifts at the perfect time.  Or even better yet the ones that I never see and then when I do see them it's massively awkward because we once were close but no longer are.  And then the random friends that you instantly connect with and it seems that you've been friends your whole life.  Seasons change, people change; and all of it interests me.

To tell you the truth, I don't have anything to share for the "random everythings" column.  I must have been being dramatic or something when I typed that.  I'm not going to lie, I have nothing for ya on that one.

Thing 9

Make totally homemade bread, like Amish people or something.

Well said, right? 

I am domesticated like nobodies business.  While most little girls were dreaming of independence and working, I was dreaming about homemaking and all that came with it.  My Mother taught me well.  I was raised with an understanding that I'm not hopeless and probably *will* be stuck doing a lot of things on my own as an adult (well played, Mom) but real delight comes in crafting things with your own two hands.  Bread was something I had never attempted before.  Out of all of the baking and cooking I've done in my life, I had never made actual bread before!  Actual bread, in my mind, is bread made with yeast and done by hand.  Bread machines don't count - as I've made dozens upon dozens of loaves in there.  And banana breads etc do not count because, well, they are super simple and they also require no yeast.

On Friday night all of my Saturday plans were canceled.  A walking date and a single-girls chocolate-tasting party were all canceled because my friends came down with illnesses.  Bummer dude.  With an entire Saturday open - it was time to bake!

First step, get that yeast going!

Beautiful. Just a little sugar, yeast, bread flour and warm water.  Then set that off to the side while I start the big stuff...

Any sort of kitchen activity peaks the curiosity of the male in the house.  It only took about two minutes to pass before Mr. Man came wandering in, wondering what the heck was going on.  "Don't worry about it, Buddy.  I'm just mixin' up some bread dough."

More water, quick oats, bread flour, the yeast mixture...

Yeah, just so we're clear, my biggest bowl was too small for this project!  I eventually (while slowly adding in the flour) had to dump it all on the table and mix it by hand.  Nothing makes you feel more old-fashioned than kneading dough by hand.  I absolutely loved it.

Time to put that puppy in a bowl, slap a damp towel on it and let it sit for an hour...

and rise...

Apparently this would also be when my magic trick took place.  Not only did I make dough rise, but it seems that I also turned my towel from gray to purple.  I have skills.

That's one hunk of dough.  Like how I added the bottle cap to give you perspective?

After dividing it into 6 even balls, I panned 3 and froze the rest of them.

And yet again I let those suckers sit for an hour. 

Once they were ready I set them in a 350 degree oven for about 35 minutes.  The results were mighty tasty!

I passed 2 loaves on to friends and family and with the remaining one, I lived on sandwiches for the rest of the weekend!  "Thing 9" was a total success!

Tameiki

Japanese for: a sigh; deep breath

That's how my week is going.  Not that I have anything to complain about; it's just life.  My taxes have been filed so I no longer need to plain out how I'm going to get that done.  And I still have leftover ribs from yesterday.  Double bonus!

I've been thinking a lot lately about my childhood friendships.  Perhaps I mentioned that on a past blog, I'm pretty sure I did.  Anyway, I have been blessed with some serious characters in my life.  As I sat in my house last night and thought about how much I'd love someone to help me organize the chaos of my dining room, the only person I could settle on wanting was my childhood best friend, Naomi.

You see, I was a messy kid.  My room was a pigsty.  I couldn't keep that thing cleaned and organized ever.  And I mean EVER.  When I was 8 my Mother had a bone marrow transplant and as a result she couldn't be around dust or germs AT ALL, during her recovery.  I came home to an empty house.  Other than books and a few toys that could be washed and saved, everything was packed in the garage or attic, or it had been thrown out or taken by the family and friends who cleaned the house for us - including pictures, which sucks because I know that a lot of pictures from before that time were split among other people...meaning, I missed out on a lot of historical pictures of my family.  Whatever, point being, I had pretty much nothing.  We started over.  Sometimes life does that to you.

As a kid you accumulate a lot.  I brought things home, was given things, was handed down things...I wasn't lacking.  I may never have had new things, but I had "things" none the less!  And some of those "things" I still have to this day.  Yikes.

Some people are good at purging belongings.  I fail at this.  Maybe it's because I wasn't given the chose 24 years ago, but I refuse to use that as a crutch.  I have moved 6 or 7 times in my adult life.  Prior to that, in my dependant life (read: the first 18 years on earth) we never moved house.  My parents got married and LIVED in the house that my Dad still resides at.  That's a lot of crap build up!  And now, 14 years after I first left my parent's home, I now am getting all of my junk in one place.  It's finally ready to be sorted through.

Where do you even start?

That's where Naomi would be great.  She ROCKED at this sort of thing.  Any time that I was grounded and couldn't go outside till my room was clean, Naomi was the friend that came over and did it for me!  No lie.  What kind of jerk friend was I?  I did the cooking, Naomi did the organizing and we both did the washing.  That's a true friend.

Now I get home at the end of a long day and the last thing I want to deal with is a box that contains everything from random candles and notes, to journals and random bits of paper.  I hate it.  It's the thorn in my side.  It's that THING in your life that you want dealt with but you don't want to deal with it! 

Irony.

How did this rabbit trail even start?  I have no clue!

What I DO know, is that I need to get Dawson's Creek over to my friend's house tonight.  She needs Season 4, stat!  And no, it's not Naomi that needs it.

Ribs and The Bachelor

Tonight I dine on ribs.  I'm a gal who loves meat and I have been looking forward to ribs all week.  I shall devour ribs and catch up on The Bachelor.  Oh what a glorious evening!